IrfanView is a viewer for a wide variety of image, audio and video formats. The program includes batch processing, creation of panoramic images, edition of multi-page TIFF files, lossless JPEG rotate/crop and effects such as sharpen and blur. Other tools such as screen capture, scanner, slideshow, plugin support and ability to capture icons from EXE or DLL

Alternatively, IrfanView Portable is also available and updates drive letters and handles registry keys.

Partial. There is a DLL that can be activated from the setting window but it doesn't cover everything.

License:

Free for non-commerical use

How to extract:

Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice

Optionally

Delete iv_uninstall.exe

Download the plugins ZIP package and extract the contents to the Plugins sub folder

Launch i_view32.exe

Note: Plugins adds 10 megs to the size and support for more graphics, audio, video, and more. Plugins for OCR and PDF tools are available separate download -- see the thread in forums on how to enable them with portable installations.

31 comments on IrfanView

Shahdan2006-06-06 02:19

Hi..I love this program very-very much. I use it very regularly. It can load image faster then any other image viewer(i think). Try this ok!..

Raphael2006-11-19 06:02

I'm using this baby for years for fast stuff (paintshop pro for the rest) and it is just great. Besides the ability of using photoshop plugins irfanview also creates great html image galeries, multiple image aopperations throug thumbnails an almost everything else besides serious editing.This is all you need. I dare you to prove me wrong :-)

Rizole2006-12-21 15:13

The finest light weight, speedy, simple, unencumbered, non-dependant and versitile graphics programme I have used. Had it for years and at a minimum it works great as a graphics clipboard.

The only limitation I have found is that it can't deal with large files copied and pasted from photoshop.

ken2007-04-04 20:30

I find that running it from a flash drive messes up whatever settings (eg associations and shell menu settings) were set by the Irfanview on the host's hard drive. It's overwriting settings kept by the registry! This is not safe "portable app" behavior, especially if I'm doing this on someone else's machine.

tripex2007-05-07 06:32

IrfanView is not stealth or even just portable when you activate file associations or shell functions. For this the exe has to be alway on the same place. On a fresh machine or if you move the app folder you need to reregister your desired file associations and of course they are written to the registry. ALL other settings are portable via ini.

Is there ANY way to work around the file-associations thing? If an USB user re-sets the file associations to his "F: drive" installation this causes problems for the original owner of the PC. I realize it is a Windows thing but I hope someone has a clue to maybe solve this/workaround.

Kermode2008-05-31 13:35

The normal version if portable enough, the new machine doesn't know to call the program if someone clicks on a picture - because guess what - it hasn't been associated with that program. But that's not the programs fault, there is no reason to use a separate launcher.

ChronicChaos2008-07-19 19:57

Faststone is MUCH better!!!

DeepAnger2009-01-02 01:01

I've tried a lot of alternatives for years. None is as fast as IrfanView, especially in large folders with lots of files. It's the best and the only other picture viewer I use is XnView for its easier way to handle dual screens.

John Germann2009-01-02 07:56

I was unable to find a mirror that would let me select a ZIP file. What was I doing wrong?

Best way I find to make IrfanView portable-friendly is to run a PC-installed version (with Plugins), go to Properties/Settings, under Extensions 'Clear all', then uncheck any 'Shell options'. Then copy the whole IrfanView folder to your USB drive. After doing that, re-enable the extensions and shell options on the install PC. I just drag-and-drop images into an open instance since there won't be file associations on the host machine.

switched to xnview long time ago .. but my respect for irfanview never ceased

Jeff Alexander2011-05-19 09:22

This is a great piece of software: simple to use and performs almost any task. I especially like the custom/fine rotation feature which allows you to rotate images to a fraction of a degree both right and left. The batch rename and convert feature is fantastic too. It allows you to save in any format. Like many others, I've been using it for years and highly recommend it. The plugins allow you to do almost any task with it and I'm still discovering new things I can do with every day. The help files are easy to follow and it has a nice, clean, uncluttered interface. Incredibly well designed. Great program! (Did I mention it is free?)